Experimental, eclectic, nerdy, weirdo, and more. Welcome to a very ADHD interview with the forever special psychedelic garage synth punk legends OSEES’ frontman, the one and only John Dwyer, in celebration of their newest record, SORCS 80.
When we were talking over via mail trying to set this interview up, you mentioned that you loved your Istanbul concert back in 2018. So I wanna ask you about that time, and not only about concert memories, but also memories of the city.
Well, it was really fast. We were only there for two days, I think, which is pretty standard on tour. In fact, if we even get that much time, it’s quite lucky. I have an old expat English-American friend living there named Archie McKay, who’s married a Turkish woman. We played with his band The Young Shaven and had a good time and ate really well. I love Turkish cuisine. We went to the Blue Mosque and just did a bunch of touristy stuff because I’d never been there before. But yeah, the show was really fun. It was cool. I’m looking forward to maybe trying to come back. I’m actually talking with my booker right now about it. So for next year, we’ll see.
Have you tried Turkish coffee too? Did you like it?
Yeah. A big fan. It’s got a real kick in the ass, you know? It’s a strong coffee. It’s good.
Yeah, it’s small in amount but really strong.
Yeah. That’s real coffee.
How are you with coffee in general? What is your favorite coffee?
I’m a fan of coffee. I worked at cafes when I was a kid in America. But I will say I stopped drinking coffee in the morning just because when I got a little older, it made me crazy in the morning. It would wake me up too fast, you know? So in the morning, I usually start with black tea, and then I switch to coffee. Usually when I’m drinking coffee at home these days, I’ll buy a darker roast and do a pour over. I even have an Espresso machine and will have Espresso Americano, or something like that. I usually do a darker roast just because it’s a little bit less caffeine. But what I really do like is, and I don’t know if you have this in Turkey, there’s something called a Cinnamon Roast, where they roast the beans so they’re red, like the color of cinnamon. I’m a fan of all kinds, though. It’s just that nothing tastes like Turkish coffee except for Turkish coffee. It’s very specific. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve had coffee everywhere. South Africa and Italy have really great coffees. Italy’s got a weird parallel, I would say, with Turkish coffee, where they make a very strong, very tiny coffee, and it’s good, but I like having a sip a bit more, you know, volume wise. Weirdly, I can’t drink it in the morning because it makes me fucking crazy. But if I drink it at night, I can drink coffee and go to bed. (laughs) By the time the day has gone on, it’s less of a problem for me. And I’m drinking coffee right now.
Right now, I’m drinking a soft herbal tea, because I intend to go to bed shortly after.
What time is it there?
It is actually just around midnight.
Cool. In Turkey, I’m guessing you interview at all kinds of crazy times.
I interviewed King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard at around 4 am, so yeah, that can happen.
Makes sense.
I want to talk about the new album SORCS 80 through this quote of you I saw in a recent interview: “I am already bored with all of our past material. I’m always curious about what’s around the corner.” This quote resonates with me so much because I think that is basically how I approach life, as well as how you approach your artistic career.
Yeah. I mean, it’s certainly understandable. I have a feeling that everybody would agree with me, whether they want to admit it or not, that you get tired of your own material. Things like improvisation and especially performing live open up all the interesting little aspects and doorways inside of preconceived composition. Spontaneity adds a whole new spice to the thing that you’ve been doing for ages. So I’m glad that we have that, at least to make things interesting for us and for the fans. I guess that was the answer to the question.
From the making of SORCS 80, can you name random memories that feels associated with the album?
This one was done mostly at home by myself to start, I spent a month working on it. I write pretty quickly, as I’m sure you could guess. But this one was in the dark studio at my house, so it was really peaceful and almost like being in the womb a little bit. (laughs) I would just get high and work and write whatever came out. I came into this one with a preconceived notion of what I wanted, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. But I think this one did.
I think I would like people to hear the demos of these so they can really hear how it started and where it ended up, because some of them are pretty close, but some of them are wildly different. It wasn’t that hot in LA at the time, and it’s funny because I was so buried in it that I don’t really remember much of it, honestly. In fact, I was going through the demos yesterday to see if I had everything, and there was stuff in there that we didn’t end up using that I couldn’t even remember. It’s sort of like- I don’t want to say a trance, but when I really get in the mode, especially if I’m alone, I will just have my eyes on that and then when it’s over, it’s like a dream a little bit, you know? But nothing really happened outside of that. I just wanted to work on it at home. Then I brought it to the band and we started rehearsing with the samplers. I have a bunch of rehearsal tapes of that as well. Just getting it dialed in, having everybody add their bits and pieces to it, and then the record coming back to my house and recording it again.
You just mentioned the recording process resembling a dream. Do you dream often? What do you dream about usually?
I’ve never been good at lucid dreaming, so whenever I realize I’m in a dream, I automatically wake up. I did look into people who study how to lucid dream where you can control your environment, I think they’re called oneironauts.
Honestly, when I was a kid, I would have a lot of night terrors and nightmares. A lot of the times, I would be picked up and carried away by an invisible force. Nobody could see me or help me, which was terrifying. But that got over. I think 35 years of watching nonstop horror movies has made me much more capable of dealing with horror like that. So that doesn’t really happen to me anymore. I don’t really get scared of the dark or anything like that. At night, I like it really dark and kind of cold. I open all my windows.
My life is so busy now and I have so much going on that, unfortunately, my dreams tend to be pretty much mirroring actual life. Not too much, but things are just less fantastical. Occasionally, it’ll get weird, but honestly, I think I just have so much shit on my mind that it permeates my unconscious as well. I would say I have more interesting thoughts, maybe, or dreams during naps in the daytime. If I take a little quick nap, I’ll have some sort of a vision of a landscape or something like that. But really, I don’t even remember my dreams. I’ve been taken sleep aid, too, for the past couple years, because of general stress in life and stuff, so that I can get the sleep I need to keep on the regimen I’m on with creativity and my life in general. A very boring answer to an interesting question. (both laugh)
I think it’s interesting because my dream life has mirrored my adult life, where you put aside childhood fascinations. I still deeply adore things that I liked when I was a kid, like fantasy, science fiction, film and music. These are all things that I kind of came up on and got more and more into as a kid. But also the reality of the world sets in, especially now when you have constant information and access to information that’s true, as well as misinformation. It’s a very heavy-duty world to not take some baggage with you into the other side. Everybody is stressed out or maybe even slightly overly aware of the horrors of the human world, you know? (laughs) You really have to hold on to those good moments. Sleep aid was good for me in that way that I can actually get a sound night of sleep, feel pretty well rested, have the energy to try and make art, and have a positive effect.
Real life sometimes feels like a surreal version of reality.
Honestly, in real life, I have more far out shit happen than I could imagine. Sometimes things happen where you just say, “You can’t make this up!” There’s a reason people say that, because sometimes you’re just somewhere and you’re like, “What the hell is going on?” Right now, it feels like the gas pedal is to the floor in the world. The pendulum swings both ways politically and all that. It’s just always waiting for the other shoe to fall to see what’s coming next, because I have no idea, I don’t have answers to these questions. This is what people go to bed are thinking about every day, if they’re an adult anyway, and probably if you’re a kid, too, which sucks, because I think if you’re a kid, you shouldn’t have to worry about this shit. Unfortunately, that’s not the case anymore. Children are basically being forced to become adults earlier in a lot of aspects. They have to face adult realities as kids now, you know? That’s gnarly. (laughs) I don’t know why I’m laughing.
While we’re talking about the current state of politics, the US is going through a sh.t ton of absurdity in politics right now.
Yeah. Can’t make this up!
How do you feel about the upcoming election? How do you think it will go down?
I know I’m not going to vote for Trump. I wasn’t crazy about Biden either, honestly. I’m a Democrat, naturally. I grew up in a left wing household. I think these days, it’s just an extremely complicated time. It’s probably good that Biden dropped out of the race. He was very old. I don’t know how much of what they say about his state was true, but I certainly noticed that when he was being hounded, the pressure of it made it worse. Even if he was not forgetful or whatever, certainly the stress of it was screwing him up. And we can’t have that right now. We can’t have somebody in the White House who doesn’t really know what’s going on. I don’t even know who fits there. You would have to be a psychopath to want that job. I don’t think anybody can do that job anywhere in the world. There’s no system that’s human made that isn’t broken in some way, as we’re learning everywhere. There’s always a way for for power to push down on people. Whether it’s capitalism or communism, it doesn’t really matter. All human systems are being tested at all turns.
I think America is a bit of a mess right now, but we have been that way for a long time, and so is the world. I think now people are just more aware of it, because right now, it’s the only thing we talk about, which is so exhausting. I have a friend who just went to Mexico for a while, and she’s like, “Dude, it’s so nice to be here where I don’t have to talk about any of this sh.t right now.” And I’m not saying I mind talking about it right now with you, but it’s just that there’s no black and white answer to anything. It’s so complicated, you know? So, we’ll see. I know what I think is going to happen, and I don’t really want to say that right now, but it’s an unfortunate reality that we’re just going to be sitting through the next four years waiting for something to be over with. The harsh reality in America right now is that we have these archaic systems, like the judiciary being a lifetime job. If you become a judge on the Supreme Court, you’re in for life. That’s asinine. I don’t know any other job like that. The president doesn’t get to be in for life. Why would the judges? So when they’re right leaning judges, we end up with a lot of right leaning policies that affect a lot of people: Women, people of color, poor people… Still, everybody’s going to be lifting up corporations and businesses, which we’ve been doing all along anyway. Just a harsh reality.
How old are you?
I’m 27. About to be 28.
Okay, so you’ve grown up in a really interesting time, too. I meet 20 year olds, and I’m like, “Good luck!”
I’ve been around the block and I’ve seen a lot of sh.t, but nothing like this. I hate to use the word unprecedented, but every day you’re like, “F.ck, this is new.” I don’t think a sitting president has ever backed out of reelection before, like Biden just did. I didn’t think it would happen. I was like, “He’s not going to do that! He’s too pig headed and it’s insulting to his ego.” I think he was forced out. Probably for the best, we need a young person. Younger, anyway. You can’t have an 83 year old as your leader. It’s fucking nuts. The 83 year old doesn’t understand the new world. I don’t understand the new world. So I can’t imagine somebody nearly twice my age would.
I’m boring myself right now, by the way, talking about this. Let’s talk about music, man. Something positive, because, Jesus! (laughs)
I have a nerdy question about music next, actually.
Please lay it on me, man.
You’re essentially a music nerd, a music experimenter. Among other things, you are closely associated with synthesizers. Out of the whole wide world of synthesizers, do you have a favorite?
I love new and old synths. I love vintage synths just because they’re just fucking cool. I have way too many of them. I’ve been buying them up over the years before they got really expensive, too. I got really lucky.
If I had to pick my two most standard, easy to understand, easy to play synthesizers that are my favorite, it would be Realistic Concertmate MG-1, which was made by Radio Shack, a company here, and Moog. It’s a very simple, polyphonic, tiny, three octave synthesizer. Even the nomenclature on it is different. It doesn’t say oscillator, it says tone. It’s in layman’s terms. But I think that synth sounds great. I can dial in a sound on that in one second. I also have the Juno-6 with the arpeggiator and the hold function. I got that for $200 at a yard sale back in the day. They’re probably worth like $2,500 now. That is another synth with great low end and it is very easy to play.
That being said, as far as new synths go, I own a couple clones. I own a clone of a synth made by Erica Synths that’s really far out. I haven’t gotten it yet, but it’s a visual synth that uses grayscale, so you can put images in it. And it’s a Silhouette Eins, the German synthesizer that’s handmade from a computer. So it’s an Apple laptop that is turned into synthesizer. It’s really wild. And it’s based on the same sort of technology that the ANS, that Russian synth that used big black plates was based on. There is even an Optigon, which is an old Mattel toy keyboard. I have one of those. That kind of stuff is really interesting to me. The weirder the better. I have a Roland synth, too, which is one half of those Jupiter series, I think? Just weird old synths that were prototypes, I love buying those. I have some cool stuff, man. Like the Roland eighties guitar synths. Very cool. You know, really anything. Even Behringer’s remaking their stuff now. Like the Wasp. Great synth. It is the synth I used on A Foul Form. It’s just really gnarly. It sounds like the name.
I’m a fan of anything. You put a keyboard in front of me, that’s it. Except that I don’t have a modular rig. Cause I feel like it’s just one more thing I would have to deal with, honestly. I have so many friends that play modular. I have modular set-up keyboards. Old school, too, but not an actual modular rig. But that stuff’s fun, you know. I even like those new Moogs, the Grandmother and the Matriarch. They are fantastic. There is also this Russian company called Soma, that guy is just amazing. Terra, for instance, is incredible. The Pulsar 23, the drum machine is unbelievable. His stuff is so organic, inventive, interesting and super playable.
Everything I’ve just described is super expensive, too, so that’s annoying. Sorry, everybody. But Behringer has some very good, cheap, not bad knockoffs, considering you can right now make a synthesizer band for like under $1,000 with several synths. You can just get those MIDI controllers and play dubstep or whatever. Arturia keyboards are great for that. There’s a lot of interesting stuff also in software. I’ve never really delved into software for synthesis, but I know Moog makes lots of plugins and stuff like that.
I don’t know, man. It’s an ever evolving and interesting world. And the nerdier it is, the better, in my opinion.
Luckily, you haven’t mentioned anything I already own. The most recent I bought is the Arturia MicroFreak.
MicroFreak is a lot of fun. Once they built the sampler engine in that, I was trying to use it live. Here is the problem though: When there’s any humidity, it won’t work properly. If you’re playing that at home with dry fingers, it’s fine, but you can’t use it on stage. It’s like worthless in a live setting where you’re going to be sweaty. The second the keyboard would get any moisture on it, even the littlest bit from your finger, it will hold that note and not play correctly. But if you’re just playing it, it’s actually an incredible synthesizer. I was completely blown away. I wish that they would make a version of that with a regular keyboard. I love all the filters on it. I love all the effects, all the arpeggiator stuff. The grain sampler in it is really cool. It has great sounds. And then they put a sampler in it, and you can use all the filters on your own samples. It’s genius, but get rid of that touch keyboard. I couldn’t play keyboard on the whole tour because I didn’t realize at practice it was fine, but at a show when we got all excited and it got hot and fans were breathing, it wouldn’t work anymore. Every night it broke, I was like, “Ugh, what a shame!” But very inventive. I like the MicroBrute, too. I use that live sometimes. It’s a very simple, toolbox synthesizer, and mine is really dirty. You look at it, it looks filthy, which is kind of funny because it was like a $140 synthesizer. Those are cool, though. They’re loud and you get some wild sounds.
We’re in a renaissance of synthesizer music. There’s so much new music out there every day. Bandcamp is full of great synthesizer bands.
It’s no secret that you’re a huge film nerd. Everyone asks you about it, but I want to ask you a very specific thought experiment. I’m guessing you’re familiar with the work of John Waters.
Yeah, I love John Waters. I’ve met him. He’s awesome. He’s an American treasure, that man.
If John Waters actually came up to you and asked you for a collaborative project that you must come up with on the spot, what sort of ideas would you present to him?
All right. I think John Water is synonymous with sleaze. He loves the American trash and underbelly. The dude holds a torch for rock and roll, which is kind of rare these days. So I think he would require a really sleazy, good garage punk. Obviously, anybody would love to work with John Waters. The man’s a genius, and he’s such a staunch ally to so many underdogs in the world. I would make a great garage rock record for him, which is something I have no plan on doing anytime in the future. But I would do something like old school for him. Real sixties, like Russ Meyer. Trash rock. A frat rock record from the sixties. That’d be really fun, something really sloppy and greasy. For the man that had a singing asshole at the end of one of his movies.
When I think of the punkiest director, I immediately think of John Waters.
John Walters is extremely punk. And I don’t even know if he’s trying to be. That’s just him. My favorite punk always was when you would hear a punk band and then you’d see them and they would look really normal and you’d be like, “Whoa, they don’t look punk.” I always felt like Rudimentary Peni just looked like some dudes. There is also freak punk sort of stuff like Throbbing Gristle, CUM, or Whitehouse. Not really punk and more experimental, but still a punk aesthetic in it.
John Waters just rocks. And it’s also extremely undeniable that the man has an incredible DIY spirit where he was making his own films in his neighborhood, in a place he loved, with people that were his friends. And they all believed in his project and made something that was seminal. It’s f.cking cool. I love John Waters’ films. In fact, you’re making me want to turn on the air conditioner in here today and watch Polyester and Female Trouble and have a real weird day. (laughs) Why not?
Do they ever screen John Waters films in Turkey?
Not that frequently, but I know some instances of that.
He must have been there. Probably. Wouldn’t you think? He’s probably been all over the world, that man.
Actually, a friend of mine just sent me his mailing address because I want to mail him a letter, because I think he likes getting post. You probably can email John Waters, but I think he would prefer a postcard. He’s that kind of dude, you know?
Let me ask you this real quickly: When we were talking about John Waters, were you asking who were the most punk directors?
Not exactly, but I want to ask you that now.
Okay. I can throw out a couple more names just for looking up. There’s Abel Ferrara, who you might know. They did Driller Killer and Bad Lieutenant. And I like John Cassavetes.
There are some punk directors in our time. People doing cool stuff. I really enjoyed A Cross The Universe, So Me’s documentary about the duo Justice. I just watched it on YouTube. That’s an amazing documentary. It’s from a band that I don’t care about at all. But that one-hour documentary was ridiculous and a lot of fun.
Do you know Sion Sono, who directed Love Exposure?
I don’t know them.
I will send you a link after this interview.
Yeah, send me any links. I think Jodorowsky was also pretty punk back in the day. Not so much anymore. But early on, he was definitely marching to his own drum.
I would agree to that. Maybe some people would classify him more as a psychedelic hippie, but I really see him as more than that. Punk can’t be limited down to style anyway, it’s a vibe.
Yeah, definitely anybody doing their own sh.t and not giving a f.ck what anybody else thinks I would describe as slightly punk. And honestly, people always ask me what is psychedelic and I’m like, “Just if it sounds good to you while you’re in a mood.” It could be anything. It could be country music, for Christ’s sake. It could be hip hop. It doesn’t have to be psych rock with guitars or whatever, you know.
Final question: Let’s imagine we’re at a Musicians Theme Park 100 years from now, where every artist or band featured have their own memorial stone with a certain lyric by them written on it. Which one of the lyrics would you like to see written on Osees’ stone?
Boy, that’s a tough question. Maybe this from “Stinking Cloud”: “We’re dead as I’ve already said.” I don’t know. There’s a lot. I’m like a wildly shooting epitaphs in my lyrics all the time.
I just saw Mel Blanc’s tombstone at a cemetery here in Hollywood. The guy that did the voices of a bunch of cartoons like Looney Tunes and stuff. His gravestone said “That’s all folks!” Leslie Nielsen from the Airplane! movies has a tombstone that says, “Let her rip,” which I always thought was really good. And one of the dudes from Monty Python has “I told you I was sick!” written on his tombstone. (both laugh)
I have a friend that just passed away here, and some of his last words were telling everybody that he loved everybody, but he also said, “F.ck you, you f.cking f.cks.” (laughs) If you knew him, it would be funnier because that’s really the kind of guy he was. Next year’s record will be dedicated to him, I think. We’ll be writing some epitaphs there too, probably.
You can check out Osees’ Bandcamp profile here.
